Used Book – The Hidden Debt of the Economy: A Global Scandal, Renaud Duterme, Éric De ruest, Elise Roy

A plea and essential solutions for a global awareness of the environmental crisis we are facing.

This book shows that economic and environmental exploitation are inseparable and are attributable to a minority clinging to a dangerous reductionist and short-sighted ideology. Begun five centuries ago with European colonial expansion, the plunder continues today with the global imposition of productivist capitalism.

An ecological debt has therefore accumulated without ever being integrated into financial and social balance sheets. It is sometimes timidly mentioned in the speeches of some political leaders, but despite the succession of industrial disasters in recent decades, it remains unheard in the face of the dogma of growth.

This reality necessitates the implementation of original and radical solutions to emerge from the multiple crises we are facing, which carry the seeds of a civilizational collapse. Evolution of environmental law, end of globalized economic domination mechanisms, relocation of decision-making bodies, and implementation of a real and participatory democracy; these solutions echo the numerous mobilizations that are increasingly shaking the planet, while avoiding the guilt-tripping messages we are constantly bombarded with. This book is a plea for an ecology connected to economic, social, and spiritual realities, for the greater good of humanity and nature.

Eric De Ruest is an energy consultant and former communication and ecological research officer for CADTM. A member of the CNCD national climate platform, he is currently working on audiovisual documentaries about the knowledge of indigenous peoples.

Renaud Duterme teaches geography and regularly collaborates with CADTM. He is also the author of "Rwanda - Une histoire volée", published in 2013 by Tribord editions.

CADTM is the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt. Founded in Belgium in 1990 by Eric Toussaint, its main mission is "the elaboration of radical alternatives aimed at the universal satisfaction of fundamental human needs, freedoms and rights."